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Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (June 10, 1887 – October 20, 1966) was an American newspaper publisher, politician, and leader of the Democratic Party in Virginia for four decades as head of a political faction that became known as the Byrd Organization. Byrd served as Virginia's governor from 1926 until 1930, then represented the state as a U.S. senator from 1933 until 1965. He came to lead the conservative coalition in the Senate, and opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt, largely blocking most liberal legislation after 1937. His son Harry Jr. succeeded him as U.S. senator, but ran as an Independent following the decline of the Byrd Organization. Byrd succeeded to what had been the Virginia Democratic Party organization of U.S. senator Thomas Staples Martin, who died in 1919. Elected the 50th governor of Virginia in 1925, initially Byrd reorganized and modernized Virginia's government. His political machine dominated state politics for much of the first half of the 20th century. Byrd was vehemently opposed to racial desegregation of the public schools, and was the leader of massive resistance, a campaign of opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education that led to closure of some public schools in Virginia in the 1950s. Students who were denied their education in several Virginia counties became known as the "lost generation". According to Clarence M. Dunnaville Jr., Byrd was a racist and avowed white separatist. Although Byrd paid his black and white workers similarly, he was vehemently opposed to racial desegregation even early in the New Deal, and later opposed Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy as well as losing presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, despite their all being fellow Democrats, because unlike Byrd they opposed racial discrimination within the federal workforce. The Byrd Organization also benefited from limiting the political participation of blacks and poor whites in Virginia by means of poll taxes and literacy tests, but managed to defeat opposition ranging from New Deal governor James H. Price to gubernatorial and senatorial candidate Francis Pickens Miller. Although Byrd never announced himself as a presidential candidate, he received votes in the 1956 presidential election and 15 electoral votes in the 1960 election. Early life and education Harry Flood Byrd was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1887 (just two weeks after future fellow U.S. senator Absalom Willis Robertson was born in the same community). His parents, Eleanor Bolling (Flood) and Richard Evelyn Byrd Sr., moved the young family to Winchester, Virginia, the same year. Young Harry Byrd's father became a wealthy apple grower in the Shenandoah Valley, and published the Winchester Star newspaper. Harry initially attended the public schools, but received most of his education from the private Shenandoah Valley Academy in Winchester. Genealogy and family relations Byrd's ancestors included the First Families of Virginia. His paternal ancestors included William Byrd II of Westover Plantation (who established Richmond) and Robert "King" Carter of Corotoman. His maternal ancestors included John Rolfe and Pocahontas. His ancestor William Byrd III squandered the Byrd family's once vast fortune through gambling and bad investments. One younger brother was Naval aviator and polar explorer Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888–1957). His other younger brother, Thomas Bolling Byrd (1890–1968), became an infantry captain during World War I. Their uncle Henry De La Warr Flood served in the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress from Appomattox County from 1901 to 1921. Another uncle from Appomattox County, Joel West Flood, served as that county's Commonwealth Attorney (1919 to 1932), in the U.S. Congress (beginning in 1932 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry St. George Tucker), and as a state appellate Judge (of the Virginia Fifth Circuit, based in Richmond, from 1940 to 1964). Influence on character Born only twenty-two years after the end of the American Civil War, Byrd grew up in an era when "the Shenandoah Valley was still a place of genteel poverty ... Harry Byrd never lacked food, but he had no money for luxuries. No one had any money. If a man got into debt, there was small chance of getting out of it." Even worse in Byrd's eyes was the dilemma of the state itself, which was also heavily in debt during Byrd's youth. Before the Civil War, Virginia had taken on debt to help finance many internal public improvements (canals, turnpikes, and railroads) through the Virginia Board of Public Works. Most had been destroyed during the War, although the debt remained and the infrastructure needed to be rebuilt to get crops and goods to market. Virginia's first postwar legislature had affirmed those debts at original terms (highly favorable to bondholders, which by then were mostly out-of-state purchasers at rates a small fraction of par value). Some related to improvements in the area that separated during the war to form the new State of West Virginia; those were litigated for decades until the United States Supreme Court ruled in 1915 that West Virginia owed Virginia $12,393,929.50. After the Reconstruction period, most of Virginia's governors insisted upon paying state bondholders, rather than pay for public education (newly added in Virginia Constitution of 1869) or other government services. The Readjuster Party, which briefly challenged the Conservative Party of Virginia (the latter of which became the Virginia Democratic Party), advocated adjusting the terms of the prewar bonds, but had a relatively brief lifespan. Thus, the issue of Virginia's public debt was far from resolved during Byrd's formative years. Marriage and family Byrd married Anne Douglas Beverley, a childhood friend, on October 7, 1913. They lived with her parents in Winchester until 1916, when he built a log cabin, named Westwood, in Berryville at a family-owned orchard, and they moved there. The cabin was constructed from chestnut logs and remains one of the few examples of natural chestnut bark existing in the United States due to the chestnut blight. The Byrds had three sons: Harry F. Byrd Jr., Bradshaw Beverley Byrd, and Richard Byrd, and one daughter, Westwood Beverly Byrd. In 1926, Byrd purchased Rosemont Manor, an estate outside Berryville, adjacent to the family apple orchards. The family moved into the antebellum mansion in 1929, at the end of Byrd's term as governor, after some renovations. Business career As a businessman, Byrd had several operations: publishing newspapers, running a local turnpike, and selling apples and apple products. In 1903, Harry Byrd took over his father's newspaper, the Winchester Star. Under his father's ownership, it came to owe $2500 (equivalent to $85,000 in 2023) to its newsprint supplier, the Antietam Paper Company. The company refused to ship more newsprint on credit, so Byrd cut a deal to make daily cash payments in r.... Discover the Harry F Giles popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Harry F Giles books.